To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall Inn riot, largely credited to have helped in the development of the modern LGBTQIA movement, as well as the 25th pride parade in the Philippines, the first to do so in Asia, Project Headshot Clinic (HSC) is hosting “Free Love 2019” to produce “collaborative and artistic headshots that… highlight togetherness, diversity, acceptance, love and resistance to discrimination, violence and stigma.”
HSC is a digital platform that started in 2007, using the Internet as a tool for advocacy.
For this campaign, other people’s hands appear in one’s headshot. The approach, said Niccolo Cosme, does not guarantee that “people can deliver what we envision – we have to operate on blind trust… But this is what we love about this process. In uncertainty, there is that element of surprise. Adversity gives us a chance to rise to the occasion and meet it with creativity.”
Cosme added that “in reflection, the creative process of this campaign mirrors the spirit of pride and our struggle as an LGBTQIA community. We are a community of diverse individuals who have been united to confront the dangerous ideas that challenge us and threaten our lives and our rights. We may not know each other, there may have been some distrust in the community, we have questioned other people’s motives, we have questioned our own self-worth and the things that we bring to this rainbow-colored table. But we know that there is solidarity in diversity and we understand that in order to love freely, we have to band together to resist the barriers that others have placed in front of us, and struggles we have inadvertently placed upon ourselves.”
For this year’s campaign, HSC is also embracing the supposed call to action to #ResistTogether “by showing the beauty that we can create as we meet the seeming insurmountable challenges that we have to face. To resist is to honor the history of pride as a protest against intolerance. To resist is to continue the fight for equal rights for all. To resist is to honor the history of pride as a protest against intolerance. To resist is to ensure access to healthcare regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. To resist is to condemn bullying and promote the mental wellbeing of members of our community. To resist is to love freely in the face of discrimination. To resist is to continue the fight for equal rights for all,” Cosme ended.
